Friday Finishing : Alcohol, anyone?

Oh, so glad this week is Finished. It just felt like a bit of a long hard slog. It was up and down, good and bad, dry and wet. And it is Friday and I am Finished.

One nice thing finished was being asked to participate in a new feature at one of my favorite sites, How Do You Do It? I have been reading at the site since its inception and always find great information, funny stories and a lot of support from other Mamas of Multiples. It is how I met Carrie and found other Mamas that I love to read. Give it a read if you would like to know a bit more...as if that is necessary considering how much I talk about myself here.

But the true finished project of this week involves alcohol, thank god. And it incorporates the abundance of citrus, currently a crop in season here in Southern California.


Back at our Christmas party my Mom's friend brought over a home made apertif. I fell in love. It was smoking hot sweetness, so I grabbed the 'recipe' and gave it a whirl. It is a nice way to use up the accumulating bowl of orange fruit and a nice way to git my liquor on. This is vodka infused with Satsuma peel and doused in simple syrup. This is my Friday.

Want a recipe? Here goes...
:: Grab some citrus of the orange variety. I used Satsuma mandarins which were a bit hard to separate pith from peel, but I got it done with my sharp Wustof (the only one). I also added a bit of blood orange peel from the tree in the front yard. Let peels air dry until crisp.

:: Grab some vodka, we had half a bottle of Absolut. Do not know why because I am a beer girl. I was a beer girl. Put the peels in the vodka.

:: Put the bottle away for a few weeks.

:: Take it out , strain peels and add some simple syrup.

:: Decant, pour a shot and sigh, because it is Friday.

Whew, smoking hot sweetness. And it was not morning per se when I tried a sample. It was past noon, okay?

The boys love the fresh fruit and Owen has learned the art of the peel.


And Mace just reaps the benefits.


And a good lesson in judging book by cover. Our friends supply us fruit via their abundantly producing trees. The fruit looks a little rough, as if it would not be good and juicy and ripe because the peels are mottled and variegated.


But inside is pure sunshine.

The lesson of home grown food it that it does not look like store produce, but then it does not taste that way either. Hope the weekend brings your own form of sunshine, be it via sky or bottle. Slainte.